Building on the success of the iPhone App Store, Apple created a web-based application which changed the game for Mac users that want to buy software. The Mac App Store is a shopping mall where you can easily search for software for whatever you want to do, read what others think about some application, download an evaluation version and purchase a license. In case you reinstall our computer, or move to a new one, you can install all the applications you had in your old Mac with just one click.

Be it because they can find everything in one place, the easy payment method, reduced prices, integrated experience, nice UI, all of them or none at all, people are coming to app stores by droves. And I think an the app store concept fits perfectly with the need of KDE on Windows: a single installer that makes possible to install multiple applications, and with a gorgeous UI.

So here is my sixth wish-a-day: a new installer for KDE on Windows, something inspired in other app stores.

If you are an student, you may apply to Summer of Code and send a proposal to create a new installer, something which looks much more appealing (Oxygen style, etc) and is easier to use than our current installer. With sensible default values. The Apple Mac AppStore is a good example. You can reuse a lot of code form the current installer (dependency management, download logic, etc). For the ratings, comments and keeping track of what a user has downloaded (“purchased”), you can use implement the relevant parts of the Open Collaboration Servicesspecification (AKA Project Bretzn). As for the graphical part, QML looks perfect.

Sure, emerge is a must (I will talk about that soon), I can’t see how an AppStore-like installer could replace it

The current kde-win installer does not need to be split into another application, it’s really just two frontends to the same logic. Maybe start with AppStore UI by default, and have a –advanced parameter to start with the current kde-win installer UI would be enough.

“Isn’t it possible to make a collaboration with the Ubuntu Software Manager and to use their (App Store) platform?”

Canonical did not done anything new there. They simply added a Click’n’Run to Ubuntu by making a new GUI for APT package manager.
What we need for Windows, is totally different kind system what package managers are about.